I am creating an archive of residents and people who worked in 19th century Bloomsbury (London). My name is Carole Reeves and I'm the Outreach Historian at the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, University College London. Do your ancestors have Bloomsbury connections? E.mail: c.reeves@ucl.ac.uk

Tuesday, 5 January 2010

Women, babies and working men - a radical education in Bloomsbury

What stories lie beneath the surface of Bloomsbury's streets and squares? The Bloomsbury People blog is but one facet of the project which aims to explore Bloomsbury's rise from swampy rubbish dump to London's centre of intellectual life in the 19th century.

Professor Rosemary Ashton and Dr Deborah Colville (UCL English) are researching educational reform in the area. The founding of University College London - to provide an alternative to Oxford and Cambridge - is just one of the great reforming institutions of Bloomsbury. The painting above, by George Shepherd (1784-1862), is of Old Gower Mews in 1835 with the famous portico and cupola of UCL in the background (UCL Art Collections).

To find out more about radical education in Bloomsbury, click on this link.